Down the Rabbit Hole
by pumpkin314159
Summary: Draco notices Hermione is acting strangely. What could fanfiction possibly have to do with her abnormal behavior?


Disclaimer: I'm not JKR. Characters and stuff belong to her, not me.

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Draco looked at his wife across the table. She fidgeted under his gaze, and then turned her face down to study her food far more intently than necessary. This wasn't the first time she acted abnormally either. Ever since he returned from his two-week business trip earlier that day, he sensed something was wrong with her. Hermione didn't voice her concerns, but the changes were obvious. She constantly seemed uncomfortable around him, and she spent most of the time gazing into space. If she were Luna Lovegood, Draco would think nothing of the action, but Hermione wasn't. The only time she did that was when she was contemplating some unanswerable questions.

"Want to go see one of those muggle picture things?" he asked her, for lack of something else to say.

"What...um...yeah" Hermione replied. Draco frowned at that response. Normally, she would roll her eyes and tell him that it was called a movie, but tonight, she seemed more distracted than normal.

Determined to discover what was distracting her, he asked "What's wrong, Hermione?"

Her chocolate brown eyes met his pale grey ones. Her eyes looked upwards and slightly to the left as she replied "Nothing." Wrong move. Draco knew the signs when she was lying, and that eye movement was one of them.

"Don't lie to me, Hermione" he told her. Sensing she was not going to answer, he pleaded "Please, darling, I'm concerned about you. Something's not right. Please tell me." Inwardly, Draco grimaced. Draco Malfoy did not beg. He could be arrogant and commanding, but pleading was an action he did not do well. If he wasn't so concerned about her, he wouldn't have bothered.

This, however, did seem to catch Hermione's attention. "I...I've been reading fanfiction while you were gone." Draco looked blankly at her. What was fanfiction? Probably some muggle thing she was into, not that he would know.

"And..."

"And, I'm confused" Hermione told him as she looked away again, ashamed. She didn't like admitting when she was confused, even to him.

Draco struggled to keep his voice neutral as he asked "What are you confused about?"

He waited, unwilling to fill the silence. Hermione would eventually talk when she was ready. All he had to do was be patient and wait. Just as predicted, Hermione bit her lip in thought, before she opened her mouth and said "Are you a veela?"

"What?" Draco exclaimed. Where had that come from?

"Nothing. Its just something I read on fanfiction" Hermione backtracked and stared at a point on the wall.

Draco, recovered from his shock, told her, "No, I'm not a veela."

"Oh, good" was Hermione's response. Then, she asked, "You haven't been disowned because of me, have you?" This time, she seemed concerned for him.

Draco spluttered. Seriously, where were these questions coming from? They were absolutely ridiculous. "No. Seriously, Hermione, we're in Malfoy Manor. I inherited everything when my parents died, so no, I was not disowned" he said more calmly than he felt.

Hermione stared at him for a moment. Draco gulped. He could already see her formulating another question. This time, however, she seemed more wary of asking it. Hermione opened and shut her mouth a few times, the words unable to escape. With a quiver, she finally asked "Do you have a crush on Harry?"

"NO!" Draco shouted. Bloody hell, why would he have a crush on Potter, of all people. It was a ridiculous notion. He tolerated the boy-who-failed-to-die for Hermione's sake, and while he had developed a semi-friendship with Harry over the years, the though of having feelings for the boy was revolting. Hermione, however, still looked worried. Reassuring her, he said, with less venom in his voice, "Hermione, you know I love you. That's why I married you."

Hermione smiled broadly at the sincerity in his voice. As the gears in her head spun, however, that smile once more turned into a frown. "Did you only marry me because of a marriage law?" she asked.

What was a marriage law? Of course he married her because he loved her. "No. I married you because I love you."

Hermione smiled again. "And, I'm not a pureblood, right?"

"No."

"Am I adopted?"

"No."

"Were Professor Snape and your father ever lovers?"

"NO!"

"No need to shout. Next question, was I resorted into Slytherin?"

"No."

"Am I Voldemort's daughter?"

"No."

"Was I ever Voldemort's lover?"

"No." With each question, Draco was becoming more and more confused. Whatever the fanfiction thing was, it sounded dangerous. Clearly, it had driven Hermione to the point of insanity. He looked at his wife with alarmed concern. Something needed to be done, and for once, he was at a complete loss as to how to help her. "Come, darling, we're going out" he told her.

"Where?" Hermione asked, temporarily distracted from her thoughts. Impatient to leave, Draco merely stood, abandoning the rest of his unfinished dinner and strode around the table. Forcefully, but without hurting her, he grasped her arm and pulled her to stand beside him. Once she was on her feet, he linked his arm through hers and turned on the spot, feeling the pull of apparation.

With a resounding crack, the two landed in front of a dilapidated looking building. "Draco, is your sister dying?" Hermione asked when she saw they were in front of St. Mugnos.

Draco didn't bother telling her that he didn't have a sister. With her current mental confusion, it wouldn't make a difference. Instead of answering, he led her inside. Escorting her to a chair in the waiting room, he went to talk to the witch at the reception desk. Quietly so his wife could not hear, he told her, "My wife is very disoriented, and she says it's because of fanfiction."

The witch looked concerned when she heard the word fanfiction. Draco tried to keep his face neutral, but he knew he lost as when the witch immediately summoned two healers to the waiting room. "Mrs. Malfoy is suffering from fanfiction addiction" she told them hurriedly.

With a nod, the two healers approached Hermione. Draco couldn't hear what they said, but Hermione was soon convinced to follow after them. Draco followed after them. On the fifth floor, a sign read "Muggle Madness." Immediately, he followed them inside, only to see Hermione throw herself onto a tall, intimidating figure with a pale complexion. "Sevvie!" she exclaimed.

The man recoiled in shock, extracting himself from her grip. Draco looked up into the horrified eyes of his godfather. "Sorry" he mouthed.

"Do control yourself, Mrs. Malfoy" Severus told her.

Hermione started giggling uncontrollably. Severus looked affronted. He hated being mocked. In between bouts of laughter, Hermione began explaining, "Silly, I'm not a Malfoy. I'm a Snape. Mrs. Hermione Snape." She dissolved into fits of laughter again.

Jealously welled in Draco's stomach. She was _his_ wife. His. Not anyone else's. The only thing that kept him in check was the reminder that she was not in her right mind. She was crazy. Anyone could see that.

"You are not my wife" Severus informed her coldly. He would have yelled, but sensing her confusion already, he didn't want to risk worsening her symptoms.

"Of course we are" Hermione told him cheerfully. "In my seventh year I had an accident with a time turner and I traveled back to your seventh year at Hogwarts. Then, we fell in love, and when I returned we married" she explained to him.

Draco looked on in horror. What the hell was wrong with her. At that point, one of the healers approached her, "Mrs. Malfoy" he told her gently.

Hermione turned giddily towards him. "No, I'm Mrs. Potter" she announced. "No, Ginny's Mrs. Potter...Wait, I'm Mrs. Potter...No, that can't be...O bugger, I don't actually know who the real Mrs. Potter is." All of this, she said cheerfully. Draco decided he preferred the moody, embarrassed version of Hermione to this unusually, bubbly one. She was scaring him. Her behavior was completely unnatural.

The healer shot a meaningful look at Draco and Severus. "This is worse than I though. It would probably be best if you leave."

Draco and Severus nodded in agreement. Clearly, the situation was beyond their ability to handle. Without any words of parting to Hermione, they left.

That night, he searched the muggle device his wife insisted on getting. He prowled around the thing. No matter what button he pressed, the screen remained depressingly black. With a growl of frustration, he jabbed his finger onto a button lit up with a circle and a slash. To his surprise, the computer screen immediately lit up.

With a smirk at his success, Draco sat in front of the device as it slowly turned on. Once the computer was on, he searched the bottom of the screen. How did muggles ever find things in something so neatly organized as a computer screen? At last, he found the button he was looking for. Hermione talked about iTunes a lot. That must be where fanfiction was located.

To his dismay, two hours later nothing had surfaced. While he had learned nothing of fanfiction, he had heard some very interesting things. For one, there was a group that sung about living in a yellow submarine. Why he would want to live in a yellow submarine with everyone was incomprehensible. What was a submarine anyways?

There was another song where a guy offered to have someone lean on him. What a strange notion. Draco wanted to push the singer off the cliff. The worst of the songs, by far, was the idiot girl who only barely managed to remember her days of the week. "I get the bloody point. Yesterday was Thursday, and today, it is Friday" he informed the singer. "I know that."

Deciding that iTunes was hopeless, he clicked the red X at the top of the corner. At least that muggle symbol was understandable. Once more, Draco returned to the home screen. He moved the arrow-thing around, until it landed on what he decided was the second best option. He squeezed his eyes shut as he clicked, hoping this was what he needed. When he opened his eyes, there is was. Fanfiction. Right in the program called internet explorer. "Explorer" he scoffed, "I have no interest in going on a safari."

Draco moved to click on the category titled "Books" when he had a new thought. Would this fanfiction make him just as crazy as his wife? Hurriedly, he moved the arrow to hover over the red X. Should he click it, or not? If he didn't, he would never figure out what drove his wife insane, yet if he did, he might go insane too. Why were muggles so complicated? Did he really want to go down the rabbit hole?

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